


I am only as young as the minute is full of it

by heavenisalibrary



Series: We're the kids your momma warned you about [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, High School AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-01-21 12:39:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1550792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d never have guessed they’d be flying down the main road in a <i>stolen car</i> near midnight with River — who didn’t have so much as a driver’s permit — at the wheel.</p><p>John wasn’t religious, but he made the sign of the cross, just in case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Million thanks to Bec for beta-reading this for me. Any mistakes additional ones I made when editing, so that's embarrassing. Part 1/2. High School AU, the usual warning applies — it's still River/Doctor, so not really underage, but they're meant to be in high school in this, so if that bothers you, stop here please.

John had been in more trouble over the past four months than he ever had in his entire life, and he was a bit of a troublemaker by nature — he’d always had a tendency to talk back to authority without even realizing it, and when he got bored he was perhaps the most disruptive student who ever existed. But he always managed to pull himself back when he pushed it too far, and his school records were a mess not because of his behavioral problems, but because he’d been in and out of foster homes his whole life, and in and out of home school for a lot of it. River, however — whenever River hit the line at which John stopped, River pushed past it with a laugh.

She’d gotten them thrown in detention a dozen times, at least, gotten him yelled at by teachers on her behalf. But she’d also gotten him out of two speeding tickets with her low-cut tops and incredible ability to charm anybody when she set her mind to it, so he figured they were just about even. Even still, he’d never have guessed they’d be flying down the main road in a _stolen car_ near midnight with River — who didn’t have so much as a driver’s permit — at the wheel.

John wasn’t religious, but he made the sign of the cross, just in case.

“Calm down,” River said, “I drive better than you do.”

“ _I_ have a license,” John said. “And I drive just fine!”

“You drive _horribly_ ,” she said.

“My car is also _my_ car!”

“I didn’t _steal_ it,” River said. “I _borrowed_ it.”

“Rubbish!” John said. 

“ _You’re_ rubbish,” River said under her breath.

“Oi, what was that?”

“Nothing, honey.”

“That’s what I thought,” John said, flopping back in his seat and crossing his arms over his chest. “Where are we even going? Assuming we make it anywhere alive?”

River groaned loudly, shooting him a glare and pointedly slamming on the brakes as they got to a stoplight. He flew forward in his seat, glaring right back at her as he tugged at his seatbelt, trying to find room to breathe.

“You need to _calm down_ ,” River said, “or I will kick you out of this car and find someone else to come with me.”

“I’m sure you’d love to add kicking me out of a moving vehicle to your rap list — it’ll keep great company with _grand theft auto_ ,” he said, as they started to move again. “ _Where_ are we going?”

When she didn’t answer, he turned in his seat to face her, and asked her again. She gritted her teeth and held her silence, and so he asked her over and over and over until she finally shouted:

“To the Point! Shut _up_ , you ridiculous child!”

John fell back in his seat, blinking. He didn’t know much about their town that River didn’t tell him, because he didn’t talk to many other people. But he knew the Point from various references around school, the occasional murmur at the parties River made him go to. It was the make out spot, a hill just outside of the main town with no suburban sprawl to think of that offered a nice view of the night sky and sufficient privacy to overprotective parents. He immediately regretted fighting with River now, and so he just sighed, resting his head on his hand as he looked out his window.

“Don’t have so much to say now, do you?” River said.

“You still stole the car,” he muttered.

She slammed on the brakes again and he flew forward so fast that he smacked into the dashboard.

_____

The Point wasn’t terribly much to look at — a big hill with brown, ruined grass from teenagers repeatedly running it over with their cars, looking out on the town they lived in. It wasn’t a big town, about mid-sized, and so it wasn’t like it was even a nice view, thought John. There wasn’t a picturesque city skyline or quaint countryside. Just a bunch of similar, squat houses and winding roads and the way the streetlights went off one by one by one. John supposed, though, that no one came up here for the scenery, it was more what was going on _inside_ the car that was of interest.

He and River hadn’t spoken much since she’d nearly given him a concussion, and he could tell she was still a bit cross with him by the way she sighed as she shifted the car into park and turned the key a notch so that the engine shut off, but the radio stayed on. She left her hands on the wheel for a second before sighing again and reaching down to release the seat so that it slid back, and turned to reach behind her and grab a bag from behind her seat. John released his seat back as well, and when he looked back up at her, she was offering him a bottle of wine.

“You’re driving,” he said, taking the bottle but eying the one she kept for herself cautiously.

“Not right now I’m not,” she said. “We were going to just share one but then you pissed me off so I quite fancy a whole bottle now, if you don’t mind.”

“I do, a bit,” said John. Even as they argued, he tilted his bottle back toward her so that she could peel off the foil for him with her longer nails. She dug out a bottle opener from the pocket of her leather jacket and started at his bottle. “You’re going to be driving later.”

“It’ll be a lot sooner than you think if you don’t shut up,” River said, pulling out the cork with a pop.

He sighed, taking a sip and cringing at the taste as River started opening her own bottle. 

“River?” he asked a moment later, after she’d opened her bottle and taken a few sips.

“Yes?”

“Was that a night-long moratorium on speaking or just a temporary thing?”

“That was an effort to end the fight,” she said.

“Not really a _fight_ , is it?”

She sniffed. “You act like I’m some sort of delinquent.”

“Honey,” John said, turning toward her. “ _Dear_ , you _are_ a bit of a delinquent.”

She glared at him and took another sip of her wine. “Meanwhile, the last time _I_ was in trouble, it was because _somebody_ shagged me in the principal’s office.”

“While you were _impersonating the principal_!”

“You still did it,” she said.

“Yes, well,” he said, taking another gulp of wine and swishing it around in his mouth for a moment before continuing, “I never said _I_ was beyond reproach. Although it’s not like you didn’t manipulate me into it.”

“Manipulate you — “

“You _threw_ your _pants_ at me the moment I walked in!”

River just shrugged, taking a long drink of her wine. John huffed, thinking that it was rather unfortunate that they came all the way out here — stole a car to do it, so that John’s parents wouldn’t know he was out so late, seeing as he was grounded for eternity following the incident in the principal’s office — and now all they were going to do was fight. He wasn’t even angry any more — he just couldn’t stop himself from firing back every time she spoke, and he knew she was the same. They were the worst at bickering; like an old married couple, only with the short-sightedness of youth that allowed them to go on for ages.

He was about three-quarters of the way through his bottle of wine, which still tasted dreadful, and feeling a bit buzzed when River spoke again.

“ _I’m_ the delinquent,” she said. He looked at her as she rolled her eyes. “I saw your permanent record, honey — it’s not exactly sparkling.”

“Now — alright, _fine_ , I’ve had a few suspensions and — and, you know, there was that fire which _definitely_ wasn’t completely my fault and nobody ever proved that I cheated on that exam, I’m just clever, and — wait, hang on, how did you see my permanent record?”

He wasn’t sure if River had the good grace to blush or if she did simply by virtue of being further into her bottle of wine than he was.

“Ha!” he said, pointing at her. “You _are_ the delinquent!”

River glared at him — her most potent one yet, which made him shrink back in his seat a bit — and took a swig of her wine before setting it down on the floor and leaning toward him, fisting a hand in the collar of his shirt.

“What are you doing?” he said. 

“Ending the argument,” she said, and kissed him.

John was quick to set his bottle down behind her as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her onto his lap, kissing her back enthusiastically. That was always how it went — they fought about something stupid, sometimes for days, trading petty jibes and biting quips and pointed silences until one of them got tired of it and declared the fight over, usually with a kiss. River never apologized, and he didn’t either — they were both too proud, and nothing they’d fought about to date was really important enough to merit a true apology. For the time being John was more than happy with their arrangement, especially when it ended in an armful of River.

He could taste the wine on her tongue — red, whereas he’d been drinking white, and it was sharper and tarter, particularly in contrast with the sweetness lingering on his own. She pressed herself to him as she settled herself onto his lap, straddling him and dragging her hands through his hair. When they broke apart to breathe, he grinned at her, reaching up to brush a curl behind her ear.

“We’re horrible at getting along,” River said.

“‘Easy-going’ is not a descriptor one would ever apply to either of us,” John agreed.

“I’m glad,” she said.

“Me too,” John said. “Although it wouldn’t go amiss if I didn’t get nearly expelled any time soon — again. My foster parents were not well pleased by the incident in the principal’s office.”

“Oh, come on,” River said, kissing him quickly. “Don’t tell me they didn’t at least have a sense of humor about it.”

“No,” John said. “There was no humor whatsoever. My foster parents are — well, they’re… there’s a crucifix in every room of the house.”

“Vampire Slayers?”

“ _Seriously?_ ”

“I’m sorry,” she said, pausing to kiss him again. He tangled a hand in her wonderful hair and held her to him for a moment, kissing her thoroughly before he let her pull away. “You’re saying they’re religious?”

“I’m saying they felt the dress code to get into St. Peter’s Basilica was a little lax.”

“I see,” she said.

“You’re telling me your parents had a _sense of humor_?”

“My parents are…” she trailed off, licking her lips, and he slid his hands down her sides, resting his hands on her hips and rubbing slow circles with his thumbs. He wanted her to tell him more about her home life, desperately, but he didn’t want to push her — he only knew that her parents seemed to, somehow, be both her biological parents and adoptive. “My parents are young, and they’re sort of new to the job — plus, I get my rebellious streak from my mum, so she’d be hard-pressed to pass judgment on most things I do.”

“How young are they?” he asked. He had a dozen questions, but that seemed to be the safest.

“They’re the same age,” River said, “both about sixteen years older than me, give or take.”

“Very young, then,” John said, raising his brows. His tone was careful, and he could tell by the way she tilted her head at him that she knew he was hedging, just like he’d be able to tell with her. Still, she allowed the conversation to continue, and he wondered if it wasn’t because she’d had three-quarters of a bottle of wine.

“They were young when they had me,” she said, “wasn’t exactly planned.” 

He tried exceptionally hard not to react strongly to the confirmation that the oft mentioned Amy and Rory were actually her parents, but he knew by the way she rolled her eyes before leaning in to kiss him again that he’d failed. He ran his hands up and down her spin, slipping them beneath her shirt to run along her soft, warm skin, gasping into her mouth when she began to move her hips against his, pressing down against his lap. He was always attracted to River, and she was merciless in her exploitation of that fact, but his mind was still racing — somewhat sloppily, thanks to the wine — around the truth of River’s parentage. He wanted to know everything about her, and she must have sensed his divided thoughts because she pulled away from him with a huff, peering down into his face with a furrowed brow.

“Something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…” he trailed off, fishing for words.

“Too much wine?” River asked when he didn’t complete his thought, rolling her hips pointedly against his.

“ _No_!” he said, “clearly _not_.” He grabbed her hips to stop her movement, dropping his head back to rest against the seat as she kissed a trail up his neck, her touch slightly sticky from the wine.

“What’s on your mind, John?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“Actually,” River said, sliding her mouth to the side to take his ear lobe in her mouth, working the skin with her tongue and teeth. He gasped, his fingers digging harshly into her hips, “I really do. I’m sitting on your lap, we’re alone, and I’ve had the better part of a bottle of wine but your mind is nowhere near here — I’m _dying_ to know what’s more interesting.”

He hummed. “I’m sorry, it’s just… I’m just… wondering.”

“About?”

“Your parents,” John said, just as River had undone the second button of his shirt. She let out a dramatic sigh, slumping against him slightly.

“I’m not wearing any knickers and you’re thinking about my parents.”

“You’re not wearing — no, _no_. Focus. I’m just — are they your _parents_? Because you said they were adoptive,” John said.

He felt River tense slightly against him. He lifted his hands up from her hips to rub up and down her spine very gently, as though soothing her.

“They’re my biological parents,” River said, “but they’re legally my adoptive guardians.”

“How does that… work, exactly?”

River sighed again, sliding to sit sideways on his lap so that she could look out the window of the car instead of at him. He let her have her little evasion, wrapping one arm around her hip and running his other hand softly through her hair as she leaned against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin.

“They were really young when they had me,” River said. “Total accident. Rubbish sex ed curriculum, clearly. They were going to keep me, at first, but they were just really, really young and very stupid. They weren’t ready. I was three or four when I went to live with Mrs. Kovarian — she was a family friend, and she legally adopted my from Amy and Rory. I was with her until three years ago or so.”

“Why the change?”

“Does it matter?” River said.

“Of course it —”

“Sweetie,” River said, shifting around to face him again and pressing her hips down into his once more, reminding him of the growing distraction in his pants as she kiss him quickly. He only resisted slightly. “I’m not saying it doesn’t matter — I’m just reminding you that your tipsy, handsy girlfriend is sitting in your lap alone in a car with a positively enormous backseat.”

“Mm,” John said against her lips as she kissed him again, “that’s important, too. But River…”

He trailed off as she finished unbuttoning his shirt and let her pull it off of him. She began to kiss her way down his chest, and he inhaled unevenly as she hummed her consent for him to continue. 

“ _River_ ,” he said, pausing as she laved her tongue over his nipple, reaching down to unbutton his trousers. “Just — you know you can tell me anything, right?”

River hummed again, raising her brows and shifting further back so that she was kneeling on the floor in front of his seat. She finished unbuttoning and unzipping him, and she looked up to meet his slightly troubled gaze as she reached under the elastic of his pants. “Anything?”

“Ri — “ he gasped as she wrapped a hand around his erection, pausing and trying to grab a hold of his thoughts as she gave him a few swift tugs. “Anything.”

“I want to swallow you whole,” River said.

“Bloody hell,” he said, throwing his head back against the seat. “That’s not — that’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” River said, and for a half second looks vaguely apologetic, but immediately after she shrugged her shoulders slightly and leans forward with a smirk, wrapping her lips around the head of his cock and sucking hard enough that he instantly lost track of the conversation entirely. 

She swirled her tongue around his head and he fists his hands in her hair, gasping she widened her mouth and with painstaking slowness took him deeper into her mouth. He watched with hooded eyes as her full lips spread to take him in, and she held his gaze until she took him in as deep as she could go. Her lips curved slightly as he watched, as though she was smiling around him, and he moaned at the sight, the sound growing louder — surprising even him — as she swallowed, constricting around him, and he shouted her name. She pulled back until her mouth was once again tight around his head, her hands grasping the base of his shaft, and she flicked her tongue quickly over the vein on the underside of his cock. Without meaning to, his hips jerked, and she released him, gagging slightly.

“I’m sorry, I’m really, very, a lot sorry I didn’t mean to —”

River shushed him, leaning forward to reach up and grab him by the back of the neck and pull him down for a kiss. He was dimly aware of her shifting around, trying to pull her trousers off in the crowded space of the car, but when one was kissing River Song, well, everything else sort of fell by the wayside. She kissed with a skillfulness that left him breathless, always — she was very intentioned with the way she kissed. She knew just the way to press her lips and tilt her head, just the way to move her tongue to make him dig his fingers into her. But what he loved even more than kissing River like that was kissing River when she was past being able to calculate her kisses — kissing River was the absolute best when she was as desperate for him as he always was for her and let him know it, when she scrambled at his skin with her fingers and opened her mouth wide against his and gasped into his mouth and their tongues slipped and teeth bumped. Oh, _god_ , he loved kissing River, but never more than when she kissed him like she _needed_ him.

Eventually she seemed to succeed in shedding her trousers, and as she clambered onto his lap again he wrapped his arms around her, digging his hands immediately into her incredible ass. He was delighted to find that she wasn’t, as she’d said, wearing any knickers, and he pulled back from her lips to gasp as she slid along the hard length of him, warm, wet, bare skin. 

“God, honey,” she breathed in his ear, her nails digging into the skin at the base of his neck where she gripped him as he slid a hand between her legs to press against her clit. “I want you — _all_ of you — so much.”

“Want you too,” he said quietly, watching her face as he worked his fingers between her legs. She laughed a bit, the sound low and throaty and so sexy he couldn’t resist leaning forward to place a kiss on her throat.

“It’s all I think about,” she said, “I don’t think you quite — _ah_ — understand.”

“Don’t —” he started in disbelief, cutting himself off to smirk smugly at her as he moved his slid a finger into her and her hips jerked automatically. “ _River_ , we haven’t — you know — it’s not, it’s not because I don’t _want_ to. It’s —”

“It’s what, John, because if it’s something we can solve _right now_ —”

“There’s nothing to solve,” he said, quieting her with a kiss. “I just… don’t think we should until you... you know.”

“What?” she said, a touch irritably, although her face was the picture of pleasure as he added a second finger. She braced herself against his shoulders, riding his hand, but she was settled on his lap, so her every movement rubbed some part of her against his erection, and he thought that having this conversation while all that was going on was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life.

“Until you love me too,” he said, abruptly. The words fell strangely between them and River immediately stopped moving, her mouth dropping open slightly as she stared at him. “Not that — it’s not a _problem_ , like I said, it doesn’t need _solving_ — it’s just… I thought — I think —”

“John,” River started, tilting her head slightly to the side and looking at him like he’d grown a second head. But before she could respond, there was a knock on the window and a flashlight abruptly shone through — the windows were a bit fogged up, which John very much appreciated, as his trousers were around his knees and River’s were crumpled up _somewhere_.

John yelped and pulled back from River, lifting his hands in the air as River rolled her eyes at him.

“Make yourselves decent and get out of here in the next ten minutes,” said the cop John could now see through the window, “or I’m escorting you both home to your parents.”

“Police escort probably isn’t the thing to calm your parents, hm?” River said as she clambered off of his lap and into the driver’s seat. John huffed as he tucked himself back into his pants — the situation had done well enough to calm him down, but it still was a bit of an uncomfortable squeeze. He winced a bit as he leaned over to grab River’s trousers and handed them to her.

“Probably not, no,” he said. He wanted to ask what she’d been about to say, but River was resolutely looking anywhere but at him as she pulled her trousers on and moved the wine bottles to the back seat. 

She started to drive in silence, until she abruptly broke out into laughter at a stoplight.

“What?” he said.

“I just realized,” River said, “that poor policeman. Knocked on the window, thought he was doing his duty breaking up horny teenagers past their curfew.”

“Yeah, and?”

“ _And_ in doing, he failed to notice that he was knocking on the window of a stolen car.”

John was quiet for a minute. “Delinquent.”

“Accomplice,” she shot back. She glanced at him with a grin, and he felt something within him loosen as he smiled back. It was only then that he noticed she was heading toward her house, not his.

“River, I live —”

“I know where you live, sweetie,” she said, “but you’re no good to me if you’re at your house and I’m at mine. I’m out of batteries — it just won’t do.”

John didn’t respond for a full five minutes when her meaning finally hit him and he turned bright red, clapping a hand over his face and riding the rest of the way to River’s house exactly like that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River parked the car down the street from her house, promising him that she’d return it in the morning and they wouldn’t have any problems. He started to pry into how she could be so sure that the car wouldn’t get noticed in the middle of the night, but she started to say something about false license plates and he clapped a hand over her mouth, telling her it was better that he didn’t know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm slow/impatient and also this chapter got very long, so I'm breaking it down even further. This'll now be three parts. (No more, I promise.) So here's the second. High School AU, yadda yadda.

River parked the car down the street from her house, promising him that she’d return it in the morning and they wouldn’t have any problems. He started to pry into how she could be so sure that the car wouldn’t get noticed in the middle of the night, but she started to say something about false license plates and he clapped a hand over her mouth, telling her it was better that he didn’t know. She rolled her eyes at him and led him around the back of her house, carefully cracking open the window of her bedroom and climbing inside. He followed after, but he was still a bit drunk and clumsy to boot and so ended up in a mess of limbs on her floor. She snorted at him, but before she could respond he remembered she’d also had most of a bottle of wine and stood up in a hurry, wagging a finger at her.

“Hang on,” he said, “aren’t you still —”

“Yes, a bit,” she said, “but I’ve got years of experience driving under duress, honey, so a little bit of a buzz doesn’t really make a difference.”

“What do you mean _years_ of experience?” he asked, brow furrowing as he stepped toward her.

“I mean ‘years of experience’,” she said with a shrug, turning away from him. She went to lock her door, and he huffed, noting her evasion and making a note to ask about it later. She started fussing around her room a bit, tucking things in drawers, and he took the moment to look around — he’d never been inside her house before, and certainly not her bedroom.

It looked like the typical bedroom of a teenage girl with a bit of a rebellious streak — slightly messy, punk rock posters and brightly colored knick-knacks — but as he looked around he got the sense that it wasn’t nearly so messy as it seemed. He picked up on patterns quickly, in any situation, and it seemed as though she’d almost made the mess on purpose. Things carefully misarranged, clothes that didn’t look dirty or wrinkled draped artfully over furniture. For the millionth time he wondered about River’s past, and he came up with all sorts of scenarios that would make River into the sort of girl who put effort into affecting normalcy, but none of them were very pleasant, so he shoved them to the back of his mind. He blinked, and realized she was no longer by her dresser, and instead sitting on her bed. She rolled her eyes at him when he looked at her.

“Are you done evaluating?”

“I wasn’t —”

“Oh, please,” she said. “I know you as well as I know myself, possibly because we’re similar — I’d do the same thing. Do tell, sweetie. What did you find?”

John hesitated, shifting his weight front to back and swinging his arms a bit as he squinted at her, trying to decide if she was trapping him or if he was trapping her by telling her what he thought — her face was calm, though, and her shoulders lacked the tension she usually held there when she was being particularly deceptive or manipulative, so he sighed and sloughed over to sit beside her on the bed.

“You’re not a messy person,” he said, “but you’ve gone to great lengths to make it look like it. Those clothes aren’t dirty, and they’re placed carefully, not thrown about. There’s dust on your dressers, on your shelves — all those little knick-knacks that are half knocked over and leaning against one another are arranged like that, not the result of carelessness. Even that poster, right there, with the tear — you did it on purpose. I can tell by the angle and —”

“Yes, yes,” River said, “you’re very clever.”

“Why?” he said.

She sighed, biting her lower lip before she leaned down to pull off her shoes. He always let her have those moments she frequently took when discussing personal things to look away from him, and remained quiet until she sat up and scooted back to rest against the pillows of her bed, curling onto her side and looking at him carefully.

“I don’t want Amy and Rory to worry,” she said. “I’ve a habit of being very neat. _Very_ neat. The first week I was here my room looked like a prison cell it was so bare. I even — I have a lot of weird habits. Can’t be any hair, can’t be anything left on make up brushes or dirty clothes that might have — I spent a lot of time hiding, and my parents thought I was a bit mad when they came in here. So I messed it up a bit.”

“What do you mean, hiding?” John said, taking off his own shoes and sliding back to lay beside her on the best, on his side facing her. She sighed again, stirring a curl that fell into her face, and he reached out to tuck it behind her ear. “You don’t have to tell me, River. But I wish you would.”

She leaned forward to kiss him, wrapping and arm around his shoulders and pulling him to her, pressing her body against his. The moment their bodies touched she seemed to come alive, and her fingers cut into him, her teeth grazed at his lips, her hips moved abruptly against his. She drew her hands through his hair, scraping his scalp in a way that gave him goosebumps, and he knew River liked things a bit firm — if not downright rough — but this felt desperate to him. This felt like evasion and need and he thought, maybe, that she wasn’t used to needing emotional support — he thought maybe she wasn’t used to _wanting_ emotional support, but sex was something she understood. So he slowed her down; he ran his hands gently over her body and up under her shirt, his palms and fingertips glancing over her soft skin. He held her to him gently and slowed the movement of her hips with his hands, and kissed her slowly and deeply, more lips than tongue or teeth or anything else — he kissed her and kissed her for what seemed like hours, until she was calmer, nearly purring against him, and pulled away to breathe.

“You’ve gotten very good at that,” she said quietly, her eyes dark. 

“I know,” he said.

“I know you know,” she said, smiling at him. He kissed her nose, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, fitting herself against him and tucking her head beneath his chin. He held her, and thought that this was perhaps the most intimate moment they’d ever shared; fully clothed, chastely touching, but it felt indescribably nice to hold her, and to be held.

“Mrs. Kovarian wasn’t a nice older woman like my parents thought,” River said, her voice low, her lips brushing against his throat as she spoke. He ran his hands over her back gently. “She had a few of us — foster kids, mostly, a couple adopted, one or two runaways she’d taken in off the radar. She had help, of course. Bunch of men in suits — I don’t remember any of them, very well. We were all crammed into too few rooms with too few light. It wasn’t — it wasn’t a good environment. She used us to do a lot of bad things that we — kids — could slip under the radar with. It’d start with shoplifting small things, and then escalate. I was mostly a car thief, I guess, though sometimes she’d have me do other things. I don’t remember a lot of it.”

“So that’s what you meant,” he said, “when you said you had years of experience driving.”

She nodded. “I think I was seven when I stole my first car. Broke in, hotwired it, and then slipped out without anyone really noticing so one of the men in suits could take it away, nice and easy. There were… other things. I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t like to think about it — I can’t even remember a lot of it. When the whole thing sort of… unraveled — and that’s a whole other story — and Rory and Amy took me back, I told the authorities our memories had been wiped, and that’s why they couldn’t get any details.” She snorted. “I just didn’t want to talk about it, but I really don’t have anything they could use. Mrs. Kovarian was very good at teaching us to leave no trace — hence the clean room — and she’s even better at hiding herself. She’s still out there, somewhere. Probably in a new city with a new house full of delinquents.”

John kissed her hair. “I’m sorry I called you a delinquent.”

River laughed, pulling back from him to kiss him quickly, running her fingers through his hair. “It’s alright.”  
“And I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said, “I know it doesn’t help or — or — or change anything, but I hope you know you did nothing to deserve that. You were a victim —”

“Hardly a victim, honey,” River said. Her voice was calm, but he could see the turmoil in her eyes. “I did a lot of awful things before I came here.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” he said, but there was a bit of a question in his words.

She bit her lip. “No. I didn’t.”

“You’ve got scars,” he said after a moment, “on your back — I always assumed some sort of accident, or else tried not to think about it but — they’re not from an accident.”

“No,” River said, “they’re not.”

She kissed him then, and he thought it was probably to shut him up. He held her like something precious, rolling over so that she was spread out beneath him, and he took great care in kissing a path down her neck, over her collar bones, and then on her navel as he pulled her shirt over her head. She unhooked her bra and cast it aside as he kissed her stomach, then up between her breasts, his hands cupping the weight of them as he rose up her body to kiss her lips again. He shifted to help her pull his shirt over his head, until they’re chest to chest, and he just kissed her for a minute, relishing the feel of her, warm and soft against him. The desperation of moments prior was gone, however — she was pliant against his lips, supple under his hands. They only broke the kiss to pull off the rest of their clothes, but it wasn’t about sex — it was just about closeness. He wanted to see and feel every inch of her, now that she’d let him in. He wanted to press kisses full of all the love and admiration he felt for her into the scars on her skin, until she couldn’t even remember everything that had hurt her in the past. He wanted _her_ , all of her, in every way — he wanted to lay the strands of her life, past, present, and possible futures before them and untie all her hurts like so many knots. 

They slipped under the covers and he wrapped himself around her. She curled into him, kissing his throat and wrapping her arms around him, a leg slipping between his, and he kissed her hair over and over again until he felt her breathing begin to slow.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that her parents were probably here, and that he shouldn’t stay over — especially since he wasn’t meant to be out of his house in the first place — but he couldn’t stand to let her go. He just hugged her closer and closed his eyes. He was moments from sleep when she spoke, her voice hoarse.

“John?”

He hummed.

“You’re wrong, you know,” she said.

“About what?”

“Lots of things,” she said. He shifted, starting to protest, but she she cut him off. “You’re wrong to think you need to wait until — until…. I do love you, you know.”

There were many things he could think to say to that, many things he could think to do in reaction, but her voice was slow and sleepy like his mind, and he just hugged her closer and leaned down as she leaned up to press a kiss to her lips. They kissed languidly, lazily, and within moments they both fell asleep, bodies wound around one another, sharing each other’s breath.

_____

John woke up to the sun filtering through the blinds, and it took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t in his room, but in River’s — it was pretty easy to recall when he opened his eyes to a face full of her hair. He was on his back, and she was settled snugly against him, a leg and arm draped over his body possessively and her face tucked into his chest. He had one arm around her, and didn’t move it but to pull her closer, though he did use his other hand to push her hair out of his face.

“I should’ve tied it back,” she said groggily, placing a quick kiss to his chest. “It’s a beast in the morning.”

“An actual, literal beast,” John agreed, “with a mind of its own.” She huffed, and he quickly added, “I hate when you tie it back. I love your hair.”

She shifted so that she was almost entirely on top of him, peering down into his face.

“Yours isn’t much better,” she said, reaching out to run her fingers through the tresses. He pouted and she rolled her eyes, leaning forward to kiss him as consolation.

He ran his hands up and down her bare back, his fingers especially light over the tiny scars he knew were there, and he thought that this was something he would rather love to get used to — waking up to an armful of naked, cuddly, affectionate River. She wriggled slightly on top of him, sliding her body down until she could rest her knees on either side of his hips, and he abruptly felt a bit like he couldn’t breathe. He was about to roll her over and take advantage of the situation when he remembered the night before.

“You love me,” he said, pulling back from her suddenly and grinning.

She rolled her eyes for the second time that morning. “Of course I do, you idiot.”

“You never said.”

“ _You_ only said that once,” River said, “after coming in your pants —”

John cleared his throat.

“ — so forgive me if I didn’t take it as a reliable declaration. I told you that I’d say it in time — I thought that would clearly imply that it wasn’t that I didn’t love you, _stupid face_ , but that I didn’t know how to — how to say it.” She sat up slightly, swatting at his chest. “ _Idiot._ ”

“I — I — I thought you _didn’t_ , and I didn’t want to push you or — or pressure you, and you know how I am with drawing inferences, and can we _not_ mention that I —”

“Why didn’t you say it after that?” River said. “I thought….”

“ _River_ ,” he said, “I — it would be easier to say, you know. If I… if I felt it _less_. I wanted to say it a lot, but it’s just — _you’re_ just so very _much_. So very _important_.”

“You’re an arse,” she said, but she was smiling.”

“You’re infuriating,” he said. “But I — I love you. Always, and completely.”

“I know.”

“ _River_!”

“I love you too,” she said. 

“I have a follow up question.”

“You have a _follow up question_?”

“Well, it’s only semi-related,” John said, “sort of half related. Different solar systems, same galaxy.”

“Just ask it, John.”

“Are your parents home?”

“Probably,” River said, glancing over at the clock on her bedside table. “It’s six in the morning on a Sunday. They usually sleep in a bit and then make some ridiculous breakfast. Amy tries to make waffles, but she can’t cook to save her life, so Rory kind of follows along behind her adding things to the mix when she’s not looking to make it edible.”

John grinned. “It sounds lovely.”

River looked as though she wanted to protest, but at the last second sighed, grinning a bit and rolling her eyes. “Yeah, it’s a bit precious.”

“In a good way.”

“Mostly,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I’m already in trouble with my foster parents,” he said. “They’ll be up any minute and realize I’m gone. I’m already grounded, and if your parents are asleep, well…”

“Are you propositioning me?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. It was only when she started moving, sliding her body down slightly to rub herself up against him that he remembered she was sitting astride him and he gulped, hands flying to her hips.

“Not necessarily,” he said, “I’m just saying, at this point, it doesn’t matter when I get home. I’m dead when I get there anyway.”

“Even death row inmates deserve a conjugal visit,” River said instantly, and he chuckled against her lips as she leaned forward to kiss him.

“I love you,” he said again. “It gets stuck in my throat sometimes and I try to show you other ways and you deserve to hear it constantly. I’m the worst at that, but just — you know.”

“I know,” she said, leaning her weight fully against him and pressing her lips to his.

This time he wrapped his arms around her and rolled them over until he was laying on top of her, his hands skimming up and down her sides as she opened her legs to let him rest between them. It occurred to him, as it no doubt occurred to her, that the caveat he’d placed on their sex life no longer existed, but he didn’t want to mention it and ruin the moment. All the same, it made it exceptionally mind-numbing as she wrapped her legs around him and rocked her hips against his, hot, slick skin against his straining erection, to know that there wasn’t any reason why they couldn’t or shouldn’t or wouldn’t. He shuddered as she ran a hand through his hair, reaching between them to roll a hand firmly over one of her breasts, until she moaned into his mouth. 

“Shhh,” he said, “your parents are sleeping.”

She bit his lip in reproach, and he growled, pressing himself more firmly against her as they kissed. She reached a hand down to wrap around his cock, and he sighed into her mouth, running his tongue over the roof of hers, opening his mouth wider as though he’d devour her — and he wanted to. He’d loved River since nearly the moment he’d seen her, but she scared him more than a little, and he was rubbish with words and feelings — but to have nearly everything out and open between them was invigorating. And she _loved_ him. They fought constantly, he was always trying to tell her what to do, she rolled her eyes at him at least five times a day, and at least twice she’d stolen his car when he got on her nerves and not returned until the next day when she picked him up for school. By all accounts, they didn’t get along at all — except in those moments when they did, which were everything, to John. She laughed at his dorky jokes and would stay up all hours of the night debating philosophy and politics and even history — she had a fondness for archaeology that baffled him — and she held his hand at parties when she noticed him feeling a bit too alien in the setting. She was always ready to meet his eyes in class when someone said something particularly stupid, just as close to laughing as he was, and she brought him the sort of trouble that gave his racing mind something to do. River was everything he’d never known he needed or wanted; he was better for and with her, and to know she felt the same — he’d never thought he deserved that. 

She tightened her fist around his cock, and he gasped, pulling away from her mouth as she dipped her head to fasten her mouth to his neck, licking and sucking at its base in that way he knew would leave little red marks just below the collar of his shirt in that way he knew she loved. He slid slightly off of her as she moved her hand around him, reaching one of his own hands to press his fingers between her legs. He watching goosebumps raise on her skin as he teased her, running his fingers over her slick folds as she rolled onto her side so that they were facing one another. John kissed her shoulder, grinning at her expression as he slid two fingers slowly into her. The only sounds in the room for a moment was the quiet slide of skin against skin and their heavy breathing. River inched closer to him, shifting to wrap a leg over his hip and trap their hands between them. She angled her hips nearer to his, moving her hand back to rest against the back of his head and pull him in for a kiss. She pulled herself closer with the leg slung over his body, leaving no mystery as to what she wanted, but he pulled back from her, meeting her hooded gaze and breathing heavily.

“I haven’t got protection,” he said. “I’m —”

“No need,” she said, “I’m on birth control and unless this whole clueless virgin thing was an elaborate act, we haven’t got anything to worry about.”

“Alright,” he said after a moment, kissing her nose and lifting his hand from between her legs to trail it, sticky-slick, up her body and to her mouth. She sucked his fingers between her lips, running her tongue over them in a way that made him shudder. He withdrew them with a pop, reach his hand back around her to pull her even closer.

“Alright?” she said, looking at him carefully.

“More than,” he said. “You?”

“Yes,” she said, “ _god_ , yes.”

He kissed her again, moaning as he tasted her on her own tongue, and flattening his hand against her lower back so that she arched into him. His hand slid further down to cup her ass as he pulled her closer still, and she reached between them to line him up with her entrance. She teased him, resting the tip of his cock right at her folds as he held his breath, and circled her hips over him.

“ _River_ ,” he whined, pulling back to kiss her throat as she threw her head back, “please, please, please…”

“Mm,” she hummed, “I love to hear you beg.”

“I need you,” he said, his voice rough against her throat as he kissed his way back up to meet her eyes.

“I need you, too,” she said, and he had a feeling that she wasn’t talking about sex, but he didn’t have much time to contemplate it, because with those words she shifted her body so that he slid into her, and his brain more-or-less short-circuited. He watched her face as she slowly slid down his length, pulling her closer until he was completely buried inside of her; she looked divine. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly parted in pleasure, her eyes dark and hooded, her breath coming in short pants. She felt incredible around him, and he thought that it wasn’t even necessarily the physical sensation, but the knowledge that he was temporarily _part_ of her that made it so incredible. She chuckled, kissing his lips. “Of course you’re philosophical during sex.”

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes,” she said, “and John?”

“River,” he said, kissing her again, and shifting his hips slightly so that her whole body gave a little jolt.

“Shut up,” she said, opening her mouth against his and kissing him fully. She rocked her body against his, using the leverage from wherever she gripped his body to circle her hips over his, and he began to move in and out. The sounds she made were positively obscene, and though some part of his brain knew they needed to be exceptionally quiet, he loved it too much to stop her. 

She hiked her leg higher up over his hips, allowing her to grind down against him every time he thrust up into her, and she pulled away from the kiss to breathe, squeezing her eyes shut, her mouth open and letting out needy little whimpers with every move. He slid a hand up over her back to press her chest against his so that he was touching every inch of her she could, and her body began to lose time against his — her calculated circles became arrhythmic, until she was just writhing against him, clawing at his back and at his hair, biting at his throat, and he’d never been more glad to know she was on the verge of orgasm, because he didn’t think he could hold out any longer. He clapped his hand over her mouth just in time to muffle her cry as she came, and the feeling of her constricting around him, the tremble of her body as she rode it out all around him was almost too much. He rolled her over to press her into the mattress and give himself better leverage, and pressing a kiss to her lips as she blinked up at him began to thrust in earnest, hard and deep, and her back arched off the mattress, her body shaking slightly every time he brushed against her clit. His body shook with the effort to hold himself back, but she was gasping against his chest as he pressed his hands into the mattress on either side of her, her fingers curling against his skin, and he knew with a little ingenuity he could bring her along with him. He was about to reach down between her legs, but she beat him to it, and he groaned to feel her finger scrabbling against the skin of his lower stomach as she found her own clit. She clenched around him and he felt like he was going to die from pleasure as he thrust into her a few more times before she shattered around him once more, and he followed, coming so hard his vision went completely black for a moment as he collapsed on top of her.

She rubbed her hand gently over his back, the soothing stroke of her fingertips, and after a moment he slid out of her and fell to her side, breathing heavily. She reached over to brush back a tress of his hair. He grabbed her hand to pull it down to his mouth so that he could kiss the pad of each and every finger.

“Sentimental idiot,” she said.

“ _Your_ sentimental idiot,” he said.

She smiled, kissing his forehead before she rolled over to grab her phone off the nightstand and check the time. When she rolled back over she was biting her lip and looking at him anxiously. He raised a brow.

“What?” he said. Then, unsure, “not worth the wait?”

She laughed, pressing herself into his side and kissing him for the millionth time that morning. “ _Well_ worth the wait,” she said. “It was perfect, honey.”

“Yeah, it was,” he said.

“But my mom texted me,” River said.

“Isn’t she…?”

“Here, yes,” River said, looking a little concerned. “And apparently awake. She told me to bring my friend down for breakfast.”

John gulped. “You don’t think she… _heard_ , do you?”

“I hope not,” River said with a cringe, “she could’ve simply heard us talking. And anyway, how embarrassed could you be after the whole school heard —”

John leaped immediately out of bed, covering his ears with his hands. “You _promised_ not to mention that!”

River laughed. “Just get dressed, you enormous idiot.”

“But I’m _your_ enormous — hey! You know,” he said, walking toward her and wagging his finger, “some girlfriends have actual terms of endearment for their boyfriends. They call them pleasant things like — like —”

“Sweetie?” River said with a raise of her brow, making to stand and pushing his hand out of the way as she did. “Honey?”

He deflated, frowning. “I guess.”

She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Get dressed, _sweetie._ No doubt the parents are now listening with their ears against the door.”

“We are not!” shouted a shrill, Scottish voice from outside, followed by a gasp and a pair of retreating footsteps.

John gulped again. “This is not how I planned to introduce myself to your parents.”

River just smiled. “And when exactly does anything ever go to plan?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I certainly don’t approve,” Rory said, “and remember, I have a sword collection.”
> 
> “A —” started John, but River cut him off, grabbing a dish towel off of the counter and tossing it at her father’s head.
> 
> “He thinks he was a Roman in a previous life,” RIver said, rolling her eyes. “He’s mad, but he does have a pretty impressive gladiolus, so I wouldn’t press him, honey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erm... finally. Sorry, oof.

They clean up slowly before they go downstairs, in no small part because John was absolutely not interested in the whole breakfast thing. At one point, he tried to climb out the window, but River was much faster than him, and he hadn’t any control over his own limbs at all, so he just ended up in a heap on her floor while she rolled her eyes at him. He got dressed in his clothes from the day prior, while River opted for some ludicrous pajama pants that he raised an eyebrow at, but she merely said that it was expected — one of her father’s rules of Sunday breakfast. Although, she confided, her mother was definitely the one in charge.

John walked down the hallway, River dragging him by his hand, and feeling as though he’d somehow acquired a permanent flush of embarrassment. River assured him that if her parents — particularly Amy — had heard anything he’d be truly embarrassed about, they’d know. Even still, this was not the way he’d hoped to meet his girlfriend’s parents.

The kitchen is small a bright, connected to the living room with a table in between set up with four chairs. The walls are covered in pictures and paintings, comfy throws and bright pillows resting over the furniture. It at once looks cozy and stylish, and although it didn’t quite suit River, he thought, he could see her being comfortable here. And the moment he spotted her parents, young and bright-eyed, arguing with smiles over a bowl of pancake mix, he could see that it was totally perfect for them. River cleared her throat.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Amy said, her voice more than a little sarcastic. “How was your sleepover?”

“Did you paint each other’s nails? Have a pillow fight?” Rory said, crossing his arms over his chest and not looking nearly as amused as his wife.

“Play light-as-a-feather,” Amy said, then, winging a brow, “stiff as a board?”

“Amy!” Rory shouted, covering his ears.

Amy laughed loudly, kissing Rory on the cheek and turning her back to River and John, starting at stirring the bowl. “Lighten up. She’s sixteen not six.”

“Yeah, well,” said Rory, “sixteen is too young to be dating.”

It was River’s turn to laugh this time, walking nearer to her parents and hopping up on the counter. John followed along, standing at her side. 

“And what were you doing at sixteen, hmm?” River said, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Oh, right. You had me. Smart money says what you were doing is standing to your right.”

Rory spluttered, and Amy laughed, clapping him on the back. 

“Well, what’s your name then?”

“John,” he said, after a moment, lurching into action and flailing a bit as he stepped toward River’s parents to try and salvage the rubbish impression he’d already made. He extended a hand to Rory, who just looked at him blankly. “John Smith — boring name I know, happens when you’re a ward of the state, although, you know, come to think of it this probably isn’t the best time to talk about my spotty upbringing, wasn’t really that bad though, just lived a lot of places and with a lot of people and — and I think I’m just going to stop talking now, erm — River?”

River looked at her mother, who appeared to be on the verge of laughter. “I usually just call him ‘idiot’.”

Amy nodded and turned to Rory. “That’s usually the best policy. Isn’t it, stupid-face?” 

Rory huffed.

“So, John,” Amy said, leaving her bowl of waffle mix unattended to fuss around in the cabinets for a waffle iron. The moment her back was turned, River reached into the cabinet behind her, lightning-quick, and tossed a few small things to her father, who — in a clearly practiced motion — poured various measures into Amy’s mix and tossed them back to River. “You’re dating my daughter. You’re sleeping over in my daughter’s bedroom. And you’re only just now introducing yourself — seems a bit rude, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Rory. “Yeah it does.”

By the time Amy returned to the bowl of mix with the waffle iron, any evidence of tampering with the mix had been carefully and quickly put away. John smiled at River a bit, and she smirked back, reaching down to him to run a hand through his hair, down over his neck, and rested it on his shoulder. Under Amy’s uncomfortably sharp gaze, John barely resisted the urge to lean into her touch like a petted housecat.

“So I’m gonna ask you a few questions,” Amy said, “since we couldn’t do the good old get to know you thing.”

“Okay,” John said, gulping. “Go ahead.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” he said.

“Junior?”

“Freshman,” he said, “spotty educational record. Home schooling and other rubbish.”

“But you’re smart.”

“Smarter than —“

River elbowed him.

“A bit,” he said, “I mean, not a bit. A lot. Very.” 

“And you like my daughter,” said Amy.

“A bit,” he said, “I mean — well, same as before.”

“A lot,” Amy said, narrowing her eyes at him. 

John shrank back. Amy stepped closer to him, and she was nearly his height, all red hair and an acuity to her gaze that she’d no doubt passed along to her daughter. She looked at him closely as he gulped, and then looked him up and down, and then looked to River with a shrug.

“That chin is ridiculous,” Amy said, “but I like him.”

John let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, and even more surprising, River exhaled too, as though she’d been nervous. She played at not caring what anyone thought about anything she did, and she was especially aloof when it came to her parents, but she clearly wanted their approval. Amy and River both glanced at Rory, who was pulling the first waffle out of the iron and pour the batter for the second in. He barely looked up.

“I certainly don’t approve,” Rory said, “and remember, I have a sword collection.”

“A —” started John, but River cut him off, grabbing a dish towel off of the counter and tossing it at her father’s head.

“He thinks he was a Roman in a previous life,” RIver said, rolling her eyes. “He’s mad, but he does have a pretty impressive gladiolus, so I wouldn’t press him, honey.”

“Too right,” Rory said, but when he turned to face the Doctor, he was smiling just a little. “Now — waffles?”

\---

Breakfast was a strange experience for John, but all in all lovely. While River was obvious reticent with her affection toward her parents for understandable reasons, she was clearly very fond. They laughed and joked and talked like they’d known each other for years, and Amy was wonderful about bringing John into the conversation whenever he started to feel left out. Rory warmed to him as the morning went on, and it became clear that his protests were mostly for show — he was devoted to Amy, clearly, and followed her lead. 

Although he would be forever curious about where River got her incredible hair, he could see bits of her in her parents. She had Amy’s sense of humor and love for shocking people, but she also had a bit of dryness she’d gotten from Rory. She had her father’s nose, mostly, and her mother’s smirk, and she and Amy frequently rolled their eyes at the same moment, as though that too were a genetic trait. Their family was odd, to be certain, but warm. Very, very warm. And for John, who’d never really had a family, he found himself feeling uncomfortably and uncharacteristically verklempt as the Ponds said goodbye to him, and River walked him to her door. They stepped out onto her front porch, and he paced around a bit as she leaned back against the door, folded her arms over her chest, and watched.

“They like you,” she said.

“I’m glad,” he said.

She watched him fidget with the railing, his eyes fixed on his hands.

“Did you not like them?”

“No! River, no. They’re brilliant,” he said, “of course they are, they’re your parents.”

She sighed. “Then what’s the matter? You look so uncomfortable it’s starting to make _me_ uncomfortable.”

“I…” he trailed off. “I’ve never had that. A family. Parents. And I know you haven’t always, either, so don’t — don’t take this the wrong way or — or — I don’t know. I’ve only ever had foster parents. And I’m always trouble, even when I don’t mean to be, so they never liked me much when I was a kid, and now I’m too old for anyone to find me adorable and want to keep me forever, so I’m always just going from house to house and…” he stopped again, tugging at his hair.

River walked over to him, brushing his hair from his face and forcing him to look at her.

“I never much cared,” he said, “‘least, I told myself I didn’t. And I never knew what I was missing until… you know. This. Breakfast. With your parents bickering and picking on each other and you and all of those little jokes that have had time to grow between you, and the way you and Rory know your mother well enough to know she can’t cook, and so you help her but you don’t let her know. Just silly old things like that. They say a lot. They _mean_ a lot.”

“Sweetie,” River said, “nothing’s as perfect as it seems. We fight, sometimes. There’s lots of things I don’t really — don’t really know how to do, not yet. I’m still figuring this family thing out. But you’re not alone, John.”

He smiled thinly at her. “No?”

“Don’t be daft,” she said, stopping whatever he was going to say by pressing her lips to his. It wasn’t all tongues and teeth and groping hands like it usually was when she kissed him. The press of her body to his was slow and smooth and gradual, and her hands stroked along the planes of his face tenderly. Her lips were gentle and warm against his, reassuring rather than _wanting_ , and when she pulled away, she looked a little watery. “Look at us, hm? Two lost orphans. Never really had homes.”

“Tragic,” he said.

“I suppose,” she said. “But anyway, the point is — well, home is where the heart is, yeah?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Well then,” River said, flattening a hand against his chest and kissing his cheek. “My home is with you. And yours is with me.”

“Sentimental,” he said, poking her in the side. She rolled her eyes. “But thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. She kissed his chin. “And just for the record, despite what my mum says, your ridiculous chin doesn’t bother me at all.”

“ _Oi!_ ”


End file.
